Fourteen years Polymet has been diddling, they get an MPCA permit which is patently deficient and Glencore, the real party in interest behind the Polymet shell wants no fiscal responsibility. It is an untenable situation, with Steve Timmer patiently peeling layer by layer from the onion. Read the item at MinnPost and be astounded at how MPCA ignored its core responsibility.
Heads should roll.
Despite Stauber and Emmer drum-beating and the CD8 DFL being in the mining firms' pocket;, that jobs, jobs, jobs mantra means - We the people of Minnesota are getting jobbed. The DFL wanted to win the CD8 2018 election, and damn the consequences, Nolan had his handpicked successor. Leah Phifer would not have let that water discharge permit bullshit happen, but she got jobbed.
Read Timmer's patient undressing of deceit and error.
The Headline Quote - from Timmer. It gives a taste of the flavor. Have the entire banquet.
UPDATE: Don Fraser and Bruce Vento were the Congressmen who got Boundary Water Wilderness protection enacted into law, having to push against Oberstar [his district which resonated with many then Reps.] and against the environment protection haters. Vigilance must continue. Whichever watershed is at risk.
I would love to see Ihlan Omar, a clear progressive, speak out on the floor of Congress against "friends on the other side of the aisle" who have not seen the colonial degradation that Africa has seen and continues to see at the hands of European adventurists. One such as the Swiss firm, Glencore. That the U.S. is her country, and she wants it protected for future generations and will fight to see that proper justified protection happens, (either that or that the true risks and fair costs will, if not evaded, quell Glencore's rapacious disregard for responsibility for long term havoc it might cause).
Saying that she is shocked, SHOCKED, to see what MPCA did when the EPA wanted standard minimal heavy metal discharge protections, at least, to be required. These are reasonable and not extreme or unreasonable protections, given the risky activity contemplated.
That an inquiry is needed to uncover circumstances leading to conscious decision-making where MPCA swept far too much under the carpet when issuing a snow job of a permit, one hiding the lack of such an essential aspect in too many less relevant pages.
We are not a colony of any Swiss mega-international commodities profit-seeking firm which could never in anyone's contemplation get away with such diabolical evasion, in Switzerland, itself.
It would broaden her progressive portfolio were she to champion the cause. Ellison would probably have seen the issue as requiring attention, if still representing the district. He's been a Boundary Waters user. He knows the beauty and fragility of Minnesota's northern waters.
Others who care should seek to meet with Omar and staff, to see her level of interest can be reached for broadening her representing future generations and their needs for a protected climate, earth and its waters.